Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations which puts culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland.

We provide a range of services which help the cultural sector achieve this goal. These include:

Training in carbon measurement and reporting;

Initiating special projects which engage organisations, artists and audiences in the sustainability debate and inspiring behavioural change;

Lobbying government, funding bodies, organisations and artists for the role of the arts in building a more sustainable Scotland.

Our work will help Scotland’s cultural sector to be at the forefront of current debate on climate change by influencing public awareness and inspiring behavioural change as well as providing practical support in carbon management and strategic planning projects.

This is in line with likely future funding requirements from Creative Scotland which will require arts organisations to report their carbon emissions in line with Scottish Government policy and following a similar move by the Arts Council England.

The projects, supported by Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage, will share £500,000 to create events, poetry, walks, films and installations that combine the country’s natural and cultural life.

An outline of the projects shows their geographic and artistic diversity. The longer list of organisations, groups and communities that are collaborating on each project shows the social reach of this economic programme.

In addition to these projects, in the Autumn, the Year of Natural Scotland will host a major conference, ‘Reading the Landscape’ exploring the representation, mis-representation, imagining and re-imagining of nature in Scotland.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

Has Donald Trump sunk to a new low? On Friday, he splashed two full-page adverts in Scottish newspapers linking new wind farms to the Lockerbie disaster – and called for people to email Alex Salmond with their opposition. [1]

It’s hard to imagine what was going through his mind when he agreed ads which said:

“Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy! This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi, ‘for humane reasons’ – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

Trump thinks that he can buy opposition to wind farms by flashing his cash to push misleading information. But what if we could turn the tables on Trump and show him that for all his money, he’s no match for people power?

Together we can flood Alex Salmond with messages of support for renewable energy and make sure that Trump’s plan backfires. It takes two minutes to write to Alex Salmond – click here to get started:

And do you know why Trump is kicking up such a fuss? Because he thinks a new wind turbine test centre will ruin the feel of hisluxury golf course on the Aberdeenshire coast. He’s throwing everything he’s got at trying to stop the planning application from going through.

But there’s huge potential for Scotland to become a world leader in green energy, bringing new jobs for Scots and more investment for the economy. [2]

Click here to tell Alex Salmond to make sure the Scottish Government take up every opportunity to unlock our green potential:

38 Degrees members have a strong history of standing up to big money. Big companies sponsoring the 2012 Olympics were hoping for a windfall from tax dodging during the Games – until we got them to promise to pay taxes on their Olympic profits.

And we’ve stood up to Trump before. Along with the campaign group Tripping up Trump, we stood shoulder to shoulder with brave local residents when Donald Trump wanted to evict families from their homes in Menie. [3]

Applications are sought from suitably qualified candidates for a joint ESRC-Scottish Government PhD three-year (‘+3′) studentship. The project entitled ‘Designing and Managing Forests for Health’ has been developed in collaboration with the Forestry Commission Scotland and seeks to examine the links between forestry and community health across Scotland.

The successful candidate will be based in the Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health (CRESH) in the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh. They will also be active members of the university’s OPENspace Research Centre and the Human Geography Research Group.

Applications will be particularly welcome from candidates with a social science / environmental background (e.g. geography, landscape architecture, sociology, environmental science), and quantitative methods will be emphasised in project and training plans. Applicants must have a Masters degree or equivalent in an appropriate field. A working knowledge in GIS would be advantageous.

Start Date: September 2012

Further details on the project and information on how to apply can be found here.

The deadline for submission is 27th April 2012. Interviews will take place during May 2012.

Applicants may discuss the project with any member of the supervisory team: Prof. Jamie Pearce (jamie.pearce@ed.ac.uk), Prof. Catharine Ward Thompson (c.ward-thompson@ed.ac.uk) or Dr Niamh Shortt (niamh.shortt@ed.ac.uk).

The first supervisor is Jamie Pearce, Professor of Health Geography, Institute of Geography, School of GeoSciences University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street Edinburgh EH8 9XP

Tel: + 44 131 650 2294

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

The Scottish Government’s conference on values and behaviours focused on the ways psychology could inform work to address climate change. Prof Tim Kasser, Knox College, Illinois; Dr Anat Bardi, Royal Holloway, University of London and Prof Greg Maio, University of Cardiff, introduced current thinking in psychology of values. For those interested in this approach, check out www.valuesandframes.org and in particular the Common Cause Handbook.

The argument being made in the offices of the Scottish Government last week was fundamentally against neo-liberal capitalism. Saving the planet requires engaging (in Tim Kasser’s language) people’s ‘intrinsic’ values such as universalism and benevolence, as opposed to their ‘extrinsic’ values such as power and achievement. Interesting suggestions were made such as banning advertising from public space and banning advertising aimed at children, given that we are apparently on average subjected to 1600 ‘adverts’ per day.

The panel sessions were more diverse and included papers on ‘Collapse’ in a North Atlantic Context, Andrew Dugmore, University of Edinburgh; and Faith Traditions and Sustainability: ‘Moving Mountains’?, Ian Christie, University of Surrey. Dugmore’s analysis of Viking society and resilience to environmental change across the North Atlantic was fascinating, as was Christie’s work on engaging religious groups with issues of sustainability.

Across the day, whilst the psychological analysis portrays itself as having all the answers, it does offer some important insights, such as the way that values are connected. Often different ’causes’ are seen to be in competition with each other, but from a psychological perspective, what is important is whether they are addressing a common set of values. This suggested that environmental organisations could usefully form alliances with organisations in other sectors and focus on emphasising common values.

But the link between values and behaviours is not simple. Although cognitive dissonance was not specifically mentioned, there was considerable discussion, and both Christie’s and Dugmore’s presentations offered nuanced readings. Christie was at pains to emphasise that engaging faith groups, although potentially very effective, was not without risks. Dugmore’s analysis of the collapse of Viking society in Greenland indicated that they had successfully adapted to one environmental change (the mini ice age), but the adaptations had infact trapped them (in tighter hierarchies and patterns of behaviour), reducing their ability to address a second phase of change. Christie also highlighted the importance of ‘wilful’ individuals, saying that faith groups that engage with issues of sustainability usually do so through the leadership of specific individuals, rather than group decisions.

In the plenary some discussion focused on the relationship between the current economic crisis and broader environmental change issues. It was suggested that, whilst economic crisis often results in greater concentration on extrinsic values, reflection on the crisis actually promotes longer term thinking and focus on intrinsic values. It would have been interesting to hear more about mindfulness.

Finally the theologian in the room asked whether the language of ‘intrinsic’ values actually had a root in Aristotelian virtues: virtuous behaviour is our best bet to address climate change. There’s a thought!

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.